I was listening to a debate over abortion between Michael Knowles on the pro-life side, and Bronte Remsik on the pro-choice side. The crux of the debate hinges on the status of the baby/fetus: is it a human? ; in which case ending its life would be murder, or is it not yet human? ; in which case removing it from the womb would be merely a choice for the mother to make. 

I get the arguments for both sides, but I don’t really want to try and work through those here. I wanted to take a look at this from my own perspective as a Christian, because I have some questions that could affect where I fall on the issue.  

Does the fetus qualify as a human life, with a soul, that God would see as murdered if it were ended through abortion? The pro-life argument: take the baby 10 minutes after delivery- is it a life? If so, then march backwards and define the moment it changes from a life to a non-life. Philosophically, that is a difficult question to answer, and the argument is not easy to dismiss. Yet….. if I march back to the moment an egg is fertilized, do I see that as a human life, that if ended, would someday be counted as a fully formed human life in heaven? I have to admit… I’m not sure I do. I don’t want to be dogmatic about it and insist it IS or ISN’T, just because I can’t find an answer to the question. There is something of an “eye test”, for lack of a better term, that tells me, no, a fertilized egg isn’t a human life with an eternal soul. Even a developing fetus doesn’t have any kind of awareness/consciousness at that point, or maybe it does, since it can react to stimuli. Of course, plant matter can react to stimuli too, so perhaps that isn’t a compelling argument. My opinion on this doesn’t really matter so much because I can’t define some moment when the fetus, which is a human embryo, will become a human if allowed to develop.  

I keep asking myself: are all these aborted babies going to be in heaven, as many Christians believe, as fully formed human adults? 

I don’t have an answer to that question.  

Christians, as we should do, usually look to the Bible, and a few of these verses are: 

Jeremiah 1:5  
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” 

Psalm 139:13-16 
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” 

These verses tell me that God knows all about the life in the womb. But if I’m honest, it also speaks in these instances of men who were born and reached maturity. So there is an honest case to be made that while an omniscient God knows everything about everything, all this is really saying is that God knew all about us before we born, and even through fetal development. I can also surmise the obvious that God knows which babies will be aborted too. But it doesn’t necessarily answer whether those aborted fetuses would be considered as eternal souls, such that they will be in heaven as fully formed humans. 

Exodus 21:22-25 
“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” 

This verse seems to answer the question a little more strongly. If you harm a pregnant woman, the life in the womb will have to be accounted for too. Clearly, the life in the womb is important to the Lord.  

But again, we might be able to reason that while he holds those who end the life accountable, that doesn’t really answer if those fetus lives will be fully adult in heaven. But the accountability of those that end them would be a strong bit of evidence perhaps against the practice of abortion too. 

There is also a question of what exactly happens to those that are aborted and if they are incarnated in an afterlife. Many Christians seem to think that those aborted before they even had a chance won’t be considered under judgment, so they will default be in heaven. But we are also told we have inherited a sin-nature, which means we are all under judgment, even before we’ve committed any sins. 

So how does a human with a sin nature avoid eternal damnation? Some sort of special pleading is called into action that makes God not judge those who are incapable of moral responsibility. Is this legitimate? I mean… I’d like to think so, but I don’t actually know. 

I suppose the other options are, this category of life is NOT resurrected into everlasting life or judgment, OR they are resurrected, but to everlasting judgment since they didn’t accept Jesus. 

Our moral senses rebel against the latter because we believe God to be good and just, and therefore assume He wouldn’t judge someone who isn’t capable of making a decision. This seems right to me.  

But it is also seems possible that such a being- incapable of moral judgment and therefore ineligible for moral responsibility- may, like, for example, animals, simply be likewise ineligible for resurrection.  

It also strikes me though that if aborted babies do end up in heaven, it would seem unlikely that Satan, who many Christians see as behind abortions, would be interested in automatically populating heaven with tons of people. What would make sense is that Satan knows he would automatically be condemning them to hell. There is, however, another possible explanation: perhaps, even if those aborted babies do go to heaven, Satan is interested in killing them 1) because he knows it would have a negative effect on those doing the killing, and 2) his own nature, being a murderer, impels him to murder even if it is against his own interests. 

I can’t answer any of these questions because as far as I know, the Bible doesn’t give me a direct answer. I can deduce things based on what I know… but I’ll also have admit that some of my assumptions about these questions are themselves deduced, not directly given in the Bible.  

For example, some strain of Calvinist might believe there is absolutely no possible redemption for those aborted babies since they didn’t profess Jesus. Non-Calvinists may believe there is. I can’t settle that with any hard conviction one way or another.  

I believe God to be righteous and just. How that works out with respect to aborted babies/fetuses… I have no idea. Perhaps they don’t resurrect. That would make sense to me, but making sense to me isn’t part of the equation.  

But, just for argument’s sake, let’s assume an aborted fetus isn’t resurrected; it doesn’t receive an eternal soul. (this would also bring into question when exactly “souls” are received, if such a construction is to be viable) In today’s political climate, that would seem to imply that ending the pregnancy doesn’t have the eternal consequences that at least Christian proponents of the pro-life movement would state.  

I think it’s impossible to avoid the fact that a life is being ended. After all, it is a human embryo that will grow into a human life. That is in fact, the very problem for the mother in an unwanted pregnancy situation. It’s not just the pregnancy, it’s the fact that this human life will be her responsibility for 18 years minimum. For many young women or girls who find themselves pregnant, this is simply not a consequence they want to have to live with. This is the benefit of the abortion- getting rid of the unwanted consequence of the sexual encounter. 

So clearly, abortion is ending a life, even if it doesn’t have the eternal consequence. If Exodus 21 is to be considered, it would seem that there is judgement on the murder of the fetus, even if one considers it a human that would never have an eternal soul. 

These are just a few of my own thoughts processing through this. Being a Christian, I’ve never heard anyone else talk about these points. Maybe their obviously wrong for reasons I’m missing right now. But I figured I’d throw them out there just so I could write them, and process through my thoughts.